Q: Can we talk about Narrative Magazine?
"I know this magazine has taken a lot of heat over the years."
Welcome to our weekend conversation!
A few days ago a reader showed me this, which is from the Poets & Writers Contests and Grants newsletter (underlined emphasis mine):
That’s right. Narrative Magazine ran a contest, charged $27 for entry. Out of the hundreds and likely thousands of submissions they received, they could not find a single story, essay, photo essay, or graphic narrative worthy of their esteemed magazine. Not for First Place, and not even for Second.
Will the entrants receive a refund? No, because as per their submission guidelines, the fees are non-refundable.
Will the magazine explain why they did not choose winners in any of these categories? It doesn’t seem so.
Narrative is a long-standing literary magazine with a large subscriber base. If they received just 500 submissions for their contest, that’s $13,500. Given the magazine’s reach, and given the breadth of genres represented in the contest, they likely received at least one thousand submissions. Which means this contest could have generated…well, a year’s salary for some.
But who knows.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe every single one of the stories, essays, memoirs, and/or graphic narratives submitted just wasn’t exactly right. And surely not naming a winner after taking $27 from hundreds of eager writers is a much better way to preserve the overall value of one’s magazine than awarding a prize for something that is not-exactly-right!
Anyway, whatever.
Look. I know this magazine has taken a lot of heat over the years.
In fact, many people seem to regard this lit mag as some kind of scam. Some have even gone so far as to suggest they have better things to do with their money than submit here.
But we need to stop. Look. Listen.
Hear me out.
I think we should give this magazine the benefit of the doubt.
For one thing, as the above announcement stated, Narrative did make their guidelines explicit at the outset. If we’re curious what those guidelines might have said, all we have to do is look at the guidelines for their current Winter Story Contest. Here they clearly state…
That’s right. Exactly. They “reserve the option to designate and award only as many winners and/or finalists as are appropriate to the quality of contest entries and of work represented in the magazine.”
Um.
Actually, I’ll concede it is a bit difficult to understand.
But I know that some of you reading this work in the field of translation. Do any of you, by chance, speak Narrative?
In the meantime, let’s consider other factors. We all know that it costs boatloads to run a literary contest. One of the biggest expenses is finding quality judges and paying them well. And surely they—
Oh.
Interesting. So they do not actually hire outside judges.
Okay, okay. So they’re running contests, charging $27, posting incoherent guidelines, might not even choose a winner, but look. It’s not like this magazine charges $27 all the time. Lit mag contests do tend to be costly. That’s what we expect. But the fees for general submissions at this magazine are surely reasonable.
I filled out their submission form, just to see for myself. And—
Eek.
$26 for a single submission.
Well, that’s…
I mean, that’s just…
But all right, okay.
Come on now. We all know that lit mags need submission fees in order to sustain themselves. It’s not like they get significant funds through advertising revenue or anything.
Just look at their media kit. They are selling advertising space for only—
Ah. So maybe they do make decent earnings through advertising.
Well but here’s the thing. It’s not like they are benefiting financially in other ways from this work. It’s not like Editors Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian sell their own books right on the site. Or—
Gosh.
Well, at least their books are reasonably priced, right?
Take the craft book Tom Jenks published in 2015.
It was only…
Oh. Ouch.
$225.00 for a book?
“What’s inside?” Kelly Luce asked on Electric Literature when the book was released. “Magic spells? An invitation to Yaddo? Roofies for agents and publishers?”
Well, yes, Kelly, maybe there are magic spells and invitations and roofies inside!
Anyway, look. The magazine can’t possibly make decent earnings from any of this. We all know that lit mags are a labor of love. No one is getting rich here. It’s not like—
Oh dear.
To be fair, based on 2023 tax filings their expenses appear to outnumber annual revenue, which means they seem to be operating at a loss of -$10,000. Clearly we should cut them some slack. They obviously need every cent of those $26 submission fees and $27 contest entry fees and $6k ad packages and $225 book sales and…
Besides, that’s only the revenue for the magazine. That is not the individual editors.
We all know editors work tirelessly, ceaselessly, endlessly without pay.
Oh gosh. I’m starting to feel a little sick.
Well, but, okay. At the end of the day, at least they’re not doing something possibly questionable, like having a mission of “advancing literature in the digital age,” and yet designating themselves a religion-related organization, most likely in order to avoid paying federal taxes.
I mean, that’s just too much for even—
All right.
Fine. Fine.
But there is one more thing.
Many of you know I’m interested in issues related to online privacy and data harvesting. I’ve written about it in regard to other online magazines before.
So, of course, all of these practices could be tolerated if this magazine takes pains to keep user data secure. Which I am sure that it does.
When you visit that site, they do not share your personal information with advertis—
Golly.
Well, at least you can always opt out, right?
You can just—
I see. No opting out.
Well then.
What can I say?
I tried, my dear friends. I really tried.
This magazine does charge $26 for submissions throughout most of the year. They do charge $27 for contests and reserve the right to not announce winners. They do lots of things that many of us probably do not like and would consider unethical.
So please, don’t mind me.
I’ll just be over here, thinking of the many better things I can do this weekend with $27.
What is your experience here?
Have you had a positive experience with Narrative?
Did any of you enter this contest? Will you consider entering their contests in the future?
If a lit mag does not choose a winner for a contest, should they be obliged to explain why?
Has this happened to you at other magazines?
What do you make of all this?
Roasted and toasted! You’re much nicer than me when it comes to giving Narrative the benefit of the doubt.
A couple years ago, a writing group that helped me launch my writing career sent out info about how great this magazine is, and I was naive enough to take the bait. The writing group was run by NYTimes best selling authors, so I started sending my work out to all the magazines and anthologies they suggested. Narrative was my very first submission. I paid $25 to submit a flash CNF piece. Then I spent $15 to submit a six word sentence. I never got a response for either of those. At the time, I was also foolishly paying $3 to $7 submission fees for all the mags suggested to me by that writing group. It took about three months of that before I woke up and realized what a nightmare I had been having. Another crazy thing about Narrative— I tried a dozen times over the past couple years to unsubscribe from their emails which were filled with ads for expensive workshop run by the editor.🤬 Last month, I was finally able to successfully unsubscribe from that trash filling my inbox.
Sometimes I think it would be fun to have a reunion of everyone who ever submitted to Narrative. We could have our own free contest for six word sentences on the theme of getting scammed.
Here’s mine:
Sorry suckers sadly scammed rise up. 🤓🤣
This is absolutely shocking. But what a superb piece of investigative reporting! You should send this to Writer's Digest, Poets and Writers, and every other publication directed at emerging and established writers. I will sign on as a paid subscriber to Lit Mag News now. Many thanks!